Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
New data suggest that the reading public is ditching e-books and returning to the old fashioned printed word.
Sales of consumer e-books plunged 17% in the U.K. in 2016, according to the Publishers Association. Sales of physical books and journals went up by 7% over the same period, while children's books surged 16%.
The same trend is on display in the U.S., where e-book sales declined 18.7% over the first nine months of 2016, according to the Association of American Publishers. Paperback sales were up 7.5% over the same period, and hardback sales increased 4.1%.
"The print format is appealing to many and publishers are finding that some genres lend themselves more to print than others and are using them to drive sales of print books," said Phil Stokes, head of PwC's entertainment and media division in the U.K.
Stokes said that children's book have always been more popular in print, for example, and that many people prefer recipe books in hardback format.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/27/media/ebooks-sales-real-books/index.html
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:34PM
Subjective opinion is subjective. Hard copies and electronic copies both have their benefits and detriments. Neither one is strictly superior to the other over all. I prefer ebooks since I can move an entire library's worth and not throw out my back or take up all the space in my home, I don't need a bookmark, no damage to it by taking notes, infinite copies for backup, etc. But hopping on a bus/plane/whatever real books are nice to have. Try searching for all instances of a word or phrase in a real book and you're going to have a bad time, in ebook only takes milliseconds. I have no problem with people preferring real books due to tactile sense and smell. Vinyl's "nuances" however...